Conveyor belts used to transport cement, coal, ore, and the like may have total lengths of several kilometers or greater. Because large amounts of labor are required to link conveyor belt sections together in such cases, the conveyors belts are made as long as possible and transported from a manufacturing plant or the like to a usage site, reducing the amount of labor needed to link the belt sections at the usage site. Various proposals have been made for the structure of a take-up drum for long conveyor belts of this sort (see, for example, Japanese Utility Model No. 3125159).
A conveyor belt take-up drum is provided with a core section around which the conveyor belt is taken up, and flange sections provided on both ends of the core section in the axial direction. The flange sections are constituted, for example, by a plurality of radial direction members extending radially outward in the radial direction from the core section, and circumferential direction members that link the outer ends of these radial direction members to form a ring. When the conveyor belt is taken up, a certain degree of clearance (for example, around 50 mm) is formed between the ends in the belt width direction and the radial direction members. As a result, the conveyor belt may shift in the belt width direction, frequently striking against the radial direction members, when the conveyor belt is being transported.
This negatively affects the stability of the take-up drum after the conveyor belt has been taken up thereupon. Moreover, an excessive load (stress) is generated at the joints between the radial direction members and the core section. Imparting the joints with a thick structure will lead to the problem of increased take-up drum weight. Increased take-up drum weight leads to increases not only in the material cost of the take-up drum, but also in transportation costs.